


contrary to or forbidden by law

by tobeinfinite



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Found Family, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Violence, a gangsters au?? in the year of our lord 2021?? YEA WHAT ABT IT .., hurt/comfort ?? hopefully, i dont even know anymore, i just needed the mental image of yoon jeonghan twirling a knife, slow updates too lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:47:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29329542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeinfinite/pseuds/tobeinfinite
Summary: As far as Chan knew, his life was forever going to be running and stealing, his universe never going beyond Jeonghan and the walls of their abandoned fortune shop. Everything changes when Chan is 16.Jeonghan just wants more for him.or;Sometimes a family is a bunch of orphans, weapons dealers, lost high school students, and assassins all lacking adult guidance and stability in some sense of the word. They're gonna be alright.[12-03-21 this fic is off hiatus! the next two chapters will be out by wednesday next week, thank you so much for waiting!]
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu, Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Seokmin | DK, Lee Chan | Dino & Yoon Jeonghan, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	1. a child whose parents are dead

**Author's Note:**

> yea this is a repost bc i fucked it up the first time i posted lmaoooo uhhhh i update weekly !!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy reading !

It was just Jeonghan and Chan for the longest time.

Chan doesn’t remember anything before their life on the run other than Jeonghan convincing him to climb down the rickety window to their freedom. And Jeonghan wouldn’t tell him anything about how they were back in the foster home, either.

~~(“You got guts, kid. Stand up, I want you to know where pride gets you. Come on, on your feet!”)~~

(“Chan, I need you to trust me.”)

 _Yeah_. It’s just been him and Han since he could remember. He remembers Jeonghan catching him when his grip slipped on the ledge on the back of the orphanage house when he was 7, and his memories have been nothing but the past 9 years since then.

Not that there’s much to remember. Since they ditched the orphanage, their lives have mostly just been running and stealing. How else are two orphans in busy Seoul with no education or money supposed to live?

Every morning, Jeonghan wakes him up from his spot in the abandoned fortune shop they call home. They shrug on ratty jackets and worn down sneakers before running down to the bakery to steal loaves of bread when the baker doesn’t pay attention. Then Jeonghan tells him go to school (that he tends to attend only once or twice a week) and runs off to do his _errands_ , whatever they were. He never lets Chan tag along with him.

“It’s not any fun,” Jeonghan’ll say, a wicked but empty look in his eyes, before running out into the crowd faster than Chan could follow.

Jeonghan’s errands take hours to do, and Chan spends his time alone honing his sleight of hand skills, taking food and clothes from kiosks and stalls he passes in the market. Jeonghan comes home far after the sun has set to what is more or less a meal, just a few thousand won richer.

Chan doesn’t know where he gets the money. Why when his hyung comes home, he looks just a bit more haunted, more tired. He might have a clue; but when Jeonghan gives him a look when he catches Chan staring, he knows better than to ask.

Go to sleep, wake up, and repeat.

Like he said: there’s not much to remember. Their lives have been quiet for the past few years, other than a few close calls when the person they’re stealing from is almost as fast they are. He’s certain this is how the rest of their lives are going to be until they die.

When Chan is 16, everything changes.

Jeonghan is like a chameleon. He has learned over the years the importance of blending into his surroundings. If there’s anything Jeonghan has drilled into Chan’s head more than anything, it is this: to catch attention is to get caught, and to get caught is to die.

So Chan is very bewildered when one night, Jeonghan barges through the entrance of their makeshift home, not caring about how the door bangs against the wall and scares off the birds loitering outside. Jeonghan’s eyes are crazed, his hair going in all directions and beads of sweat and running down the sides of his face. When he’s yelling at the top of his lungs for Chan to grab supplies, his bewilderment grows.

Perhaps most bewildering is the boy thrown around Jeonghan’s shoulders. But Chan doesn’t have time to process that when Jeonghan’s almost growling at him to make room on the couch.

Chan moves their shit aside—food wrappers and clothes thrown haphazardly—and Jeonghan lays the boy face up on it, eyes closed and unmoving.

He’s bleeding from his head. Or was. The blood is dry as it tracks down the side of his face. He looks older than both of them, with a round face and thick neck. He isn’t built like him or Jeonghan, lean and skinny. The boy looks almost burly, and the black coat he’s wrapped in makes him look bigger.

Only then does Chan notice the singular stain on his coat. It forms a small puddle on his shoulder, making it darker than the rest of the outerwear. Chan leans in closer and the smell of iron immediately makes him retract.

“ _Jesus christ_ , where did you find him?”

Behind him, Jeonghan is pouring alcohol over his hands and ripping gauze he found from a first aid kit on one of the shelves. He tosses the grimy alcohol bottle to Chan who just barely catches it.

“Ask questions later,” he says, his voice unusually grave. “Now, you need to help me stitch him up.”

Chan hisses a curse behind his teeth. He struggles to get his mind in order as he sanitizes his hands, pushing the myriad of _whatthefuckwhothefuckwhATTHEFUCK_ down in favor of trying to recall basic first aid. _Shit_ , did first aid even cover treating gunshot wounds without a licensed professional?

“I got the bullet out already,” Jeonghan says. His voice is barely controlled, just simmering over the edge of panic, which is unusual for someone as laidback as him. A thought passes: what does this boy mean to Jeonghan so much to make him panic?

He hands Chan a cloth and pushes him towards the boy on their couch. “Just apply pressure to the wound while I get this stupid thread on.”

Chan follows the order wordlessly, trying his best not to wonder why a bullet was involved in the first place. He kneels in front of the boy and pushes the cloth down on his shoulder, blood pooling to fill it in at a slow pace. As Jeonghan grunts beside him, Chan tries to distract himself from the blood by looking at the boy’s face.

If not for the red on the side of his head, he would just look like he were sleeping. His face was ashy like Jeonghan’s, but his face showed no sign of discomfort. It was enough to make Chan uneasy, and he places two fingers to the boys neck just to make sure he were still alive. Indeed, there was a pulse; faint and slow, but still there.

If they wanted to save this boy, they had to close up that wound fast.

Just when Chan turns around to tell Jeonghan this, he sees him finally managing to thread the suture. The older nudges him aside lightly to take his place and Chan watches as Jeonghan furrows his brows and exhale through his nose before piercing the shoulder with the suture.

With hands as steady as he could force them to be, Jeonghan works through the gaping wound in the boy’s shoulder, grunting and huffing as he went along. Chan watches on as he wipes the boy’s head with a new cloth and tries his best not to get in the way of the only light source in the room. He keeps two fingers on the side of the boy’s neck, afraid to feel the faint pulse disappear but braving it anyway.

Jeonghan works in silence and by the time they’re done wrapping up the shoulder with gauze, it’s past 2 in the morning. The pulse hasn’t once faltered under Chan’s fingers, and the knowledge that this stranger in their home will live to see another day fills him with relief.

“He’ll be fine.” Jeonghan says firmly. “He hasn’t wounded himself in the head, _thank god_. Just the shoulder.”

“Yeah, with a fucking gunshot wound.” Chan runs a hand through his hair and startles. “Shit, what about you? Are you okay?”

Jeonghan gives him a wave offhandedly from his spot on the floor, his head leaning on the leg of the couch that they boy isn’t occupying. Shallow breaths make its way out his mouth, his chest heaving deeply at a constant rate. His calmness infuriates Chan, and the panic from a few minutes ago that he no longer has reason to repress is coming back to him.

“Hyung, who the– who is he? What happened?”

Jeonghan stays quiet for a moment before running a hand along his face. He takes a deep breath and matches Chan’s stare. “His name’s Seungcheol.”

“I’m gonna need more than a name, hyung—“

“He’s in a gang.”

For a good part of his life, Jeonghan thought he would always be alone. It’s a sobering, sad thought to instill in your head when you’re 11 years old, but what else are 11 year olds supposed to take away from a situation where adults think you’re a monster and every other kid you’re around thinks you’re a freak.

~~(“Hannie, please stop fussing in the back, we’ll be home before you know it.”)~~

(“Eomma, I want to go home _now_!”)

Up until he was 7, home was a manor with loving, well-off parents. A garden with a fish pond, a room for all his toys. Home was eomma’s soft curls and appa’s deep laugh.

Until he was 10, Jeonghan was surrounded by grimy brick walls and mush for food every day. Adults sneered at him, their eyes branding him _murderer_ and kids pushed him around because he was skinny and pale. This wasn’t a home. Jeonghan didn’t have a home until Chan came around.

Chan was only 6 when he came to the orphanage, all thin limbs and ratty brown hair. From the whispers he could hear from adults over the thin walls, Jeonghan knew they found him in a house with an overdosed mom and no dad. Chan doesn’t remember them.

Chan was sweet and bright when he came to the orphanage, and he talked to Jeonghan one day when he saw him eating alone and never left since. Jeonghan quickly resolved to keep his spirit intact as long as it were in his power.

Which wasn’t much, seeing as he was also on the bottom of the metaphorical orphanage food chain.

But never let it be said that he didn’t try.

(“Get away from him!” Jeonghan yells as he thrashes against the grip of two bigger kids holding him by the arms. Across the yard, the oldest kid in the home stands with his hands on his hips in front of Chan, much younger and smaller than him but with eyes shining with enough determination to rival everyone else.

“You wanna fight me, kid?” The older boy turns around to look at Jeonghan. “You’re pathetic. Having a _baby_ picking your fights? _Pathetic_.”

Chan and Jeonghan went to bed that night with matching bruises, and their beds were found empty come next morning.)

Now, home is their abandoned shop, with red walls and their busted battery radio. It is Chans groans when he wakes him up to send him to the public school a few streets over, and his stifled laughter when Jeonghan attempts to haggle a vendor for snacks priced way more than what they have in their pockets. Home is his baby brother and this little bubble of happiness they’ve built around them over the years.

If it were just him, Jeonghan would be content to live out the rest of his days like this.

But he wants more for Chan.

Chan is brilliant and clever and still bright in all the ways Jeonghan wasn’t. Chan was always hopeful and happy, and it breaks Jeonghan’s heart that he couldn’t do more to give him the life he deserves. Chan doesn’t deserve ratty clothes they find in the dump, or starving for days on end.

And, well, Jeonghan had been called a murderer before, what more damage was “ _weapons dealer”_ going to do to his reputation?

He doesn’t remember how he met Seungcheol, or how he came to work in the same company as his. But work is easy between them.

Infiltrate, take, and get out without being caught. _Easy._ Seungcheol covers for him while Jeonghan takes advantage of his nimbleness to steal weapons from bigger companies. And while Jeonghan never meets Seungcheol out of work, they get along so well enough for Jeonghan to call him a friend.

Their dynamic is like this: Seungcheol is responsible and serious and kind, Jeonghan is cunning and impulsive and, quite frankly, _a little shit_. Seungcheol is sturdy and reliable, and is always, _always_ there to cover for Jeonghan no matter how many jabs he makes at his expense.

The weapons they steal make its way back to the company, who pays them for the job and never contacts them for anything else.

Like Jeonghan said, it’s easy. And illegal, but when you’re poor you don’t really get much of a choice.

Chan doesn’t question the money, even though Jeonghan can see the question always at the tip of his tongue, and Jeonghan never tells him. Some things are better left unsaid. Jeonghan was sure he would never have to tell Chan about his _job_.

Until Seungcheol gets shot.

Their goddamn company hadn’t told them who they were stealing from. They didn’t tell them they were stealing from what is literally one of the biggest and most dangerous gangs in all of Seoul. What a fucking _idiot_ Jeonghan was when he paid no attention to the way the CEO spoke when he gave them the assignment, his old wrinkly hands constantly rubbing against each other and a cough lacing his voice every two sentences.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Seungcheol had told him while they were suiting up. Jeonghan had scoffed then, telling him it was _just him and his old man senses_. Seungcheol rolled his eyes at him, reminding him they were the same age, but still gripping Jeonghan’s arm before they entered the premises and sending him a look: _be careful._

Maybe Jeonghan should’ve said it back.

Because now Seungcheol had gotten shot. Now, Seungcheol was less a few pints of blood and sporting a gaping hole in his shoulder. And their company had refused to let them in when Jeonghan had run up to them, Seungcheol in tow, and pleaded for help.

_Fuck them._

Then he had to perform surgery on him, only going by what he recalls in the brief training the company had given him, with shaky hands and Chan looking at the whole situation with fear in his eyes.

Chan being afraid of him was the last thing Jeonghan wanted. And look at him now, with an unconscious boy on his couch and blood under his fingernails as he tried to explain to his brother what kind of person he truly was.

“He’s in a gang,” Jeonghan says and averts his eyes when he sees Chan’s breath hitch. “And so am I.”

For a moment, the silence is only filled by the whir of their electric fan. Then Chan opens his mouth to say something, but Jeonghan doesn’t let him speak.

“Or used to be, I guess. We steal weapons for them, Channie, and they pay us money for it.”

Chan bites his lip and puts two and two together. “That’s where the money was coming from.”

Jeonghan hums in agreement and lets another beat pass before bracing himself for what he’s about to say. “Chan, I need you to know that what I do is not something I _want_. I never wanted to be this thief dipping his hands in dirt for filthy money. But I don’t want this life for you and—“ Jeonghan rakes a hand through his hair.

He had never been one to be open about his feelings. But he’s faced death in the eyes and managed to run in the other direction today, so he feels that it’s warranted, just a bit. “You don’t always have to live like this. And I know what it looks like, I _do_. But I hope you know that I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Chan slowly joins Jeonghan on the floor and sits across from him. “I don’t blame you, hyung. These are the cards we’ve been dealt with and it’s not fair. I’m not afraid of you.”

Arms wrap themselves around Jeonghan’s waist and he finally let’s go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. Chan holds him in a hug for a while, his head furrowing in his neck like when they were kids, and Jeonghan holds him back.

When Chan finally pulls away, he snorts and points a finger in the olders face. “God, you sap. You’re crying.” As if Chan’s eyes didn’t have tears of their own.

Jeonghan laughs breathily. “That’s just because you’re all dusty, motherfucker. I bet you ditched school today, didn’t you?”

“And I’m ditching it tomorrow, too.” Chan grins like he’s proud and Jeonghan sighs exasperatedly. Well, Chan still passes his classes anyway. On the question of how, Jeonghan doesn’t even bother wondering.

“What are we going to do with him?”

Jeonghan looks to where Chan nods his head in Seungcheol’s direction. His gaze doesn’t look hesitant or scared at all, just curious and a bit worried.

Up until yesterday, Jeonghan couldn’t name another person who gave a fuck about him, much less take a bullet for him. And now here one was.

Seungcheol looks peaceful, as if just in a deep sleep. His mouth opens lightly, hot breath pouring out from it at a pace. From the times he and Seungcheol have spoken about anything other than work, he can’t recall anything he might’ve said about family, or of anyone waiting for him somewhere home.

Chan and this dingy fortune shop tucked into the back of the city was Jeonghan’s home.

And he was ready offer it to Seungcheol, too.

“Guess he’s stuck with us.”

_If that’s what you want._


	2. lacking affection or warmth of feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay cheollie's awake !!! he's big on angst but yoon jeonghan is bigger on sentiment. as always, updates next week!!

Seungcheol’s great-uncle raised him. He took the newborn infant from his niece the moment he was born, deeming her unfit to raise him despite her pleas and cries, and took the child home. Great-uncle Choi was serious old man who lived by many principles, and he spent all his days with Seungcheol in the hopes that he will live by it too.

 _Never let your guard down_ , he barked as Seungcheol fell because of a right hook from his trainer that he didn’t see coming.

 _Keep your mind sharp_ , he reminded coolly while Seungcheol gasped for air because he had accepted a berry from his great-uncle, forgetting that it was poisonous.

 _Don’t ever let yourself get attached,_ he hissed, staring Seungcheol in the eye while he stomped on a blue bird he had been caring for behind his great-uncle’s back.

(Sometimes, he can still hear the crack of the bird’s bones, echoing the voice of someone who has been six feet under for a very long time, calling him weak.)

Twenty year old Seungcheol wakes up hot and sticky. He isn’t even fully awake yet when pain hits him like a truck. There’s a throbbing in his head, in his shoulder, in his stomach– yeah, he’s aching quite a bit. When he instinctively reaches out one arm to one particularly painful spot, he yelps at the pain it brings, like a knife slicing at him from the inside.

No moving for him then. Seungcheol groans and shuts his eyes once more.

He is _in pain_ and _sticky_ and _gross_. He smells like something’s died, and feels like it too. The bony couch he’s under in isn’t doing much to help, and neither is the cheap electric fan weakly blowing at his feet and—

Seungcheol’s eyes shoot wide open. Pause. _Where is he?_

As if on cue, something rattles in a room out of his peripheral vision. More sounds come from the same direction, and Seungcheol starts to panic. The last thing he remembers is running from the building beside Jeonghan, gunshots blaring. His hand reaches for his thigh holster, and he mutters a curse under his breath when he feels empty air where a gun should be. He tries to move again and he bites in the groan that rises to his lips at the slightest movement of his limbs. He’s _fucked_.

Seungcheol hears footsteps, a little frantic, approaching him and he braces himself for something violent. A punch to his face, a kick to his ribs, maybe a knife to his neck.

_If he takes a bullet for Jeonghan only for both or one of them to get captured, he’s going to kill him._

What Seungcheol doesn’t anticipate is a bouncy voice to pair with the footsteps exclaiming, “Oh! You’re awake, I was wondering when you would.”

Seungcheol cranes his neck to see the owner of the voice and comes face to face with a teenager in a stretched out t-shirt. His brown hair sticks up in all directions, making Seungcheol wonder if this boy had just woken up or he never really bothered to fix the nest of hair on his head. The expression on the younger boy’s face is only a little shocked as if he were caught off guard for school recitation, but it’s void of any fear Seungcheol would expect when one sees a semi-paralyzed stranger on their couch.

“Or if you were waking up at all, to be honest,” the boy continues as he squats beside Seungcheol, making him tense up. “I’m Chan.”

“Where am I?”

Chan looks a little disheartened at the ignored introduction but he shakes it off quickly to say, “You’re in our place, mine and Jeonghan-hyung’s.”

 _Jeonghan_.

“Where is he?”

“Out,” Chan says simply. “Getting eggs to cook for breakfast, I think. Don’t worry about him, you were in a way worse condition than he was when he brought you in.”

Seungcheol’s eyes widen. “He brought us here?”

“I don’t think he had a choice.” Chan’s eyebrows furrow a little bit at this, but he quickly replaces it with the same wide-eyed look as before.

Vaguely, Seungcheol remembers voices just before he blacked out. Jeonghan muttering something about not dying or _so help me god, Cheol, I’ll hit you._ Him yelling _help him!_ in a voice so desperate and hoarse it sounded like he was ripping the words out from the throat itself.

Seungcheol groans and pushes an arm on the couch to try and push himself up. When he hisses in pain, Chan gets to his feet and helps him.

It’s strange to meet Chan. He knew little about Jeonghan’s personal life; considering their line of work, it wasn’t really something that came up. And Seungcheol wasn’t one to assume, but when Jeonghan once offhandedly mentioned someone waiting for him back home, he didn’t think that “someone” meant an eager teenaged boy.

“What happened?”

The younger boy scoffs and grins, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?” Without waiting for Seungcheol to reply, he continues, “All I know is hyung brought you in like half a week ago, unconscious and bleeding out your shoulder.”

Seungcheol lifts his good hand to his shoulder, feeling the gauze and bandage over it. He shifts his glance to Chan, standing awkwardly over his body.

“That’s going to have to be changed, soon,” he says, gesturing to the bandage. “Do you want some water? We don’t have any cold, though.”

A nod from Seungcheol sends Chan bounding to another room and coming back with a plastic cup of water. It’s empty in seconds from the moment Seungcheol brings it to his lips.

A door opens when Chan goes back to the kitchen to refill the cup.

“Honey, I’m home!” Jeonghan calls in a sing-song voice accompanied by the swishing of a plastic bag.

“Hyung,” Chan calls back. “Seungcheol-ssi’s awake.”

Seungcheol hears footsteps bounding up to him and he comes face-to-face with Jeonghan sporting a band aid on his jaw, eyes already examining him.

“You bitch,” Seungcheol mutters out. “I get shot and concussed but all you get is a cut on your jaw?”

“I can’t help it if the gods like me more,” Jeonghan quips back. “You dumbass, Cheol, you could’ve just pushed me out the way.”

“I _literally_ take a bullet for you and this is the thanks I get?”

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. “I kept you alive, didn’t I?”

_He’s got him there._

When Seungcheol doesn’t reply and opts instead for an annoyed frown, Jeonghan grins at his victory and pats him on the head.

“We’ll fix your shoulder and talk about stuff after breakfast,” he says, walking to the stove and taking out ingredients from the plastic bag in his heads. “Howd’ya like your eggs, Seungcheol?”

Seungcheol has only had breakfasts in two ways his whole life:

One was when he was a child, sitting down at the table at exactly 6:00 am in the same white, pristine outfit he dons every day and eats his meal as quiet as he could beside his great-uncle as he read the newspaper. One squeak from him would result in a whipping right after.

The second is the one he lives after his great-uncle died. Usually at 4am, after a job, sitting by himself in his apartment. He lets his television play on as background noise, just to convince himself that he isn’t as lonely as he is.

Breakfasts with Jeonghan and Chan feel like a whole other event.

Seungcheol watches from the couch as Jeonghan makes Chan take a shower while he prepares breakfast, which for today is egg fried rice and coffee. He feels a little useless, but he knows he won’t be any more help to Jeonghan if he attempts to lift his arms and started yelping in pain than if he stays on the couch.

Jeonghan is silent when he cooks, and doesn’t really pay attention to anything but the food he’s making, but Seungcheol doesn’t mind. Despite Jeonghan’s silence, it’s not quiet at all; he can hear water showering from the bathroom, and the sizzle of eggs on the pan. A small radio on the counter is spouting garbled updates about the traffic and the weather. A kettle whistles and Jeonghan wastes no time in picking it off the stove and pouring its contents over three mugs.

“Cheol,” he says, referring to Seungcheol for the first time since he started cooking. Seungcheol looks at him to see Jeonghan gesture to a packet of instant coffee in his hands.

“Just black.”

“That’s so predictable of you.”

Seungcheol snorts at the sigh that leaves Jeonghan’s mouth as he prepares their coffee. Chan comes out of the shower with wet hair and wearing a school uniform, albeit probably still going against the dress code with his shirt untucked and his tie loose. He puts the prepared food on the table and dives into a seat, waiting patiently for Jeonghan to finish cooking and help Seungcheol walk over to the table before eating.

Chan talks between mouthfuls. He talks about a dream he had last night about a dancing dinosaur, and how the cat who lurked outside the shop perched on his windowsill for a minute. He mentions school, but only very little. Jeonghan converses with him with less energy, but genuine interest seeps into his voice nonetheless. And though they include him as much as they could in their conversation, Seungcheol mostly watches this silently from his place at the table, spooning eggs and biting into his bread every now and then.

The morning with them is all warmth, from the way Jeonghan ruffled Chan’s hair after convincing him to shower up to the “See you later!” Chan throws over his shoulder as he prepares to walk out the door with his backpack in hand.

It’s something Seungcheol’s never seen this close in a _long_ time.

He watches Jeonghan pull Chan back into the house to swing an arm around him and give him a noogie to mess his hair up before letting him walk to school, and the image of a lonely child in a cold manor feeding a blue bird fallen from its nest burns behind his eyeballs.

~~( _A hand grips a bird by its neck. Something cracks, and a bird meant to live its life flying falls lifelessly to the ground_.)~~

Seungcheol averts his gaze.

It’s all very different indeed.

“So.”

Seungcheol has spent the past one and a half hour since Chan left watching Jeonghan move around the house: putting the dishes away on the sink, washing them and putting them away, and finally coming over with a first aid kit to replace his bandages.

Jeonghan’s always had quick fingers—it’s why the both of them worked so well together. While Seungcheol provided protection for the two of them, Jeonghan’s hands soundlessly and seamlessly took things from their rightful places. He worked swiftly to remove the bandage, and Seungcheol only sees his injured shoulder for what seems to him is but a minute before Jeonghan cleans it and covers it once more.

“So,” Jeonghan repeated, shutting the rusty, metal kit shut.

“So,” Seungcheol echoes. “What now?”

“You know, I didn’t really think this far.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “When do you ever?” He gets a punch on his good shoulder for that.

“It’s not like you have so many choices,” Jeonghan says in a breath. “You’re all fixed up anyway, so you can go home and do whatever it is you senior citizens do in their spare time—“

“Yes because as everyone knows, all old men regularly take part in life-threatening, illegal activity.”

“—Or.” Jeonghan pauses, choosing to ignore Seungcheol’s statement. “Or you could stay here.”

Eyes blink at each other. Jeonghan tries to look casual, but Seungcheol had already heard the hesitance in his voice.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t consider it.

Seungcheol wasn’t built for solitary living. He had always felt the need to be around people, to care for them and have them care for him. He felt suffocated in any room in which he was the only occupant. He had been alone for most of his life, and it _fucking sucked_.

Seungcheol’s great-uncle instilled in him that attachment was dangerous and for the weak-willed. He had been cold and distant to his nephew so much that Seungcheol feels the chill even now years after his death.

Today the warmth Jeonghan and Chan simply _radiated_ in their tiny, run-down home of theirs took him aback.

Sixteen year old Seungcheol and sixteen year old Chan were two very different people. One was a boy provided for in a large manor and educated by the finest of tutors, and the other was a street rat who wore dirty hand-me-downs and taped up sneakers to school.

_Which boy was happier?_

The sixteen year old in Seungcheol watched the fond affection Jeonghan and Chan showed in their little nudges and interactions and screamed _want_.

“Here?” he repeated. “With you and Chan?”

Jeonghan bites his lip and rakes a hand through his hair. “Look, I owe you my life. If I died, I don’t know what else might’ve happened to Chan, so you have no idea how thankful I am. I’m like, half-ready to give you my fucking kidney if you needed it.”

Seungcheol has never seen Jeonghan so worked up over explaining, and while he knows it’s a serious moment, he can’t help but be amused at the sight of the usually cool Yoon Jeonghan look mildly frantic.

“I know we now both are _fucked_ seeing as how we’re now out of a job, but we could figure something out together.” Jeonghan continues. “Plus, you already like Chan, anyway.”

“Using a child to manipulate me, I see how it is.”

“It’s not like I’m wrong, come on– you’re trying to tell me you’re _not_ somewhat endeared by that kid?”

Laughter bubble out them both.

“I know it's not the Ritz,” Jeonghan says softly. “But it’s a nice place and it won’t be hard having each other than it is going through things by ourselves.”

Seungcheol regards Jeonghan and the earnest look on his face. He thinks about his lonely apartment with only cereal in the cupboard and a shitty TV. He thinks about Jeonghan and Chan’s home with its red walls and messy interior.

“Alright. I’ll stay with you guys.”

Seungcheol has been surrounded by cold his whole life. He would not mind burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't hesitate to leave a comment and kudos if u liked it hehe thank uuu!! updates every wednesday


	3. behavior that is appropriate to someone younger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii i know this is a day late and im sorry hhh i got caught up in something. anw this chap is a bit longer and where the plot really starts lol
> 
> jeonghan and seungcheol go thru the motions of being Adults and hansol suffers in suits in this one.
> 
> i hope u guys enjoy reading !!! i'll do my best to update next wednesday i promise!!

Seungcheol and Jeonghan find themselves seated at the table at midnight.

It had been a week since Seungcheol had agreed to stay with them. Chan had come home that day, clothes again too dusty to say he came directly from school, and beamed at the sight of Seungcheol still on their couch with a new bandage.

“You’re staying the night then?”

“You seem way too happy to have a stranger staying another night,” Jeonghan noted.

“He’s already had breakfast with us,” Chan shrugged. “Not to mention, he took a bullet for you. I think that means we’ve all passed being strangers.”

Then he turned to Seungcheol, who had been watching the conversation with stifled laughter.

“I can’t call you Seungcheol-ssi, then,” Chan said. “I’ll call you _hyung_.”

“Sure, Chan.” If Seungcheol’s heart swelled with something warm, he made sure not to let it show.

Jeonghan sighed dramatically from the kitchen before walking closer and leaning on the doorframe. “I can’t believe you’re stealing my dongsaeng from me, Choi. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you stayed.”

“You were the one who used Chan to keep me here in the first place?”

Another dramatic sigh. “A mistake I’ll regret forever. Now I’ll always be second fiddle.”

“The saying goes _play second fiddle_ , hyung,” Chan said in a sing-song manner as he walked to his room.

“Not anymore!”

With him looking so pleased with Seungcheol staying the night, Jeonghan really shouldn’t have been surprised at the excitement in Chan’s eyes when he told him over dinner that Seungcheol was staying _period_.

“Oh, man,” Chan exhaled as he turned to the oldest man in the room, who was hiding his smile behind his bowl of cup noodles. “Oh dude, thank _god_. I was afraid I’d have to be stuck with only Jeonghan-hyung forever.”

“Hey!”

Jeonghan lobbed something at him and Seungcheol laughed as he watched Chan get attacked by a stale bread roll. He caught the tiny smile Chan threw in Jeonghan’s direction, as if to say _I’m just kidding, I love you._ And he watched as Jeonghan rolled his eyes fondly but settled back on the younger with eyes saying _I know_.

Seungcheol replayed these little moments all night as he laid in the bed Jeonghan set up for him in an unoccupied room. The (un)comfort his bed provided didn’t mind him, neither was the harsh banging of his loose window against the Seoul night wind. All he was thinking about was how he knew he made the right choice.

And he knew nothing could get him to regret staying with them.

Even now, a week later, as he sits across the table from Jeonghan, rolls of bills between them.

Chan had long gone to bed, Jeonghan made sure he was out like a light before pulling Seungcheol from where he was on the sofa and to the table.

It was silent, and the only light around them came from a lone ceiling light right over the table. Jeonghan didn’t light anything else, in case it woke Chan up at all. The former man sighs, causing Seungcheol to look up at him. Right now, in the dim lighting of the room, he looked far more serious than Seungcheol had seen him for any mission they had ever gone on, round circles around his eyes, brows furrowed together as he read lines and lines of bills and debts to pay.

Seungcheol waited silently as he watched Jeonghan read on and when he reached what was the bottom of the page, Jeonghan finally looked up at his companion, previous grave expression switching to that of a casual, nonchalant one.

Seungcheol wondered how many times Jeonghan felt the need to do that—to put on a cool face to try and stop people from seeing how he was _really_ faring.

“Well, we need money.”

“What do we have to pay?”

If Jeonghan reacted to the use of _we_ and not _you_ , Seungcheol didn’t see it.

The younger man sucked in a breath and scanned through the papers once more. “Chan needs allowance for school—lunch and supplies and commute money and shit, and for the computer shop to do his homework sometimes. We need money for food. And, if we have money to spare after all that, clothes.”

“Do you mind if I ask how you guys still have water and electricity?”

Jeonghan smirked. “I’m guessing this place was owned by the government at some point before this was a fortune-tellers shop. Then when those people left, they never bothered to tell anyone that they had gone. So the government stills pays for the expenses of this building.”

A low whistle comes from Seungcheol. “You guys are pretty lucky.”

“I know—its two less bills to worry about. But if lightbulbs need replacing, or any other appliances, I have to pay for that too.”

“Well, seeing as how we’re both out of a job, the practical thing to do is to go look for one.”

“ _Obviously,_ ” Jeonghan said sarcastically. “But it’s not like either of us can go and get ourselves ay regular jobs, seeing as our only other experience is professional theft, if you could even call it that.”

Suddenly, something clicked in Seungcheol’s head. His eyes widened and he grabbed one of Jeonghan’s arms that was on the table.

“We could do that again,” Seungcheol said, looking at the expression of shock and confusion on his companion’s face.

“Do what?”

“ _Steal_.”

“Steal what?”

“No, no.” Seungcheol stood up from his chair and sighed, trying to find a way to put his idea into words that wouldn’t scare Jeonghan off and make him regret offering his home.

“We could deal weapons again.”

A beat.

“Are you _out of your mind_?” Jeonghan looked at Seungcheol as if he grew three heads in the time he was speaking. “We don’t even have our gear!”

Seungcheol frowned. “They never gave us back our stuff?”

“They wouldn’t even let you in when you were bleeding out of your shoulder and on the way to the grave, do you think they’d FedEx us a box of our shit with a get-well-soon card?”

Jeonghan wasn’t done. “Not to mention we wouldn’t even know how to find a new company, much less one who would take us in. No company would take us after what happened with _them,_ which I’m sure every company has been made aware of the moment it happened.”

“Then let’s start our own company. A _gang_.”

Another beat. The look in Jeonghan’s eyes made Seungcheol sure he had grown another head. Then finally, his expression changed to that of a resigned person.

“You’re insane. Oh, my god, you’ve actually gone _crazy_.”

“I’m not kidding!” Seungcheol follows Jeonghan to the kitchen, where the younger pulls out a glass from the cupboard and a bottle of cheap beer. “We could go over to the old building, steal our stuff and more, and then deal it to other people.”

Jeonghan giggles and Seungcheol has to check if Jeonghan had somehow drank the whole bottle without him noticing, but to his surprise, the bottle hadn’t even been opened yet.

“Oh, my god,” Jeonghan says between giggles. “This is insane. You’re insane. And I’m _actually_ considering it.”

Encouraged, Seungcheol carried on. “It’s a good enough plan, and frankly, it’s the only one we’ve got. You and I have been off the grid—“

Jeonghan’s head whips to him faster than anything and he stammers in confusion at the accusation. “How—“

“Doesn’t matter how I know,” Seungcheol says with a wave of his hand. “But I _know_. You and I have been off the grid for a long time, and when we were on the grid, nobody was there to give a fuck. We might as well have not existed at all. Getting an honest job in our situation is near impossible and you know it.”

The two stare each other off in the kitchen, a bottle of beer between the two of them, gears running in their heads behind piercing eyes. Jeonghan breaks the stare first, taking a glance in the direction of Chan’s room.

Seungcheol knew that in Jeonghan’s eyes all of this was for Chan. He knew what his idea risked—if Jeonghan ever got caught, Chan would be in way worse a situation than if they were simply broke and poor. But should Jeonghan succeed, Chan would be safe and cared for, even if at the bare minimum.

And Seungcheol _understands._ He’s known Chan for a week and a little more but he can see the potential and goodness in him that Jeonghan protects so fiercely. Both of them knew Chan had the potential to have more, to _be_ more than either of them, and it was something they were both prepared to risk everything for.

“We were good at what we did,” Seungcheol said, breaking Jeonghan’s reverie. “It wouldn’t be so hard to do it again.”

“We never did any of it on our own,” Jeonghan pointed out with a raised eyebrow. Seungcheol took notice of the way Jeonghan hadn’t yet said _no_ during their whole conversation.

Then Jeonghan moved his head to face him, and Seungcheol saw the admittance in his eyes. They smiled at each other in understanding.

_They would do this together._

Seungcheol took another glass from the cupboard and opened the bottle Jeonghan had taken earlier. He poured the two of them a drink and clinked the glasses as if in a toast.

“First time for everything,” he said cheekily, as he sipped from the glass and watched Jeonghan chuckle before taking a drink from his own.

The alcohol burned as it went down their throats.

(When did he go from “It’s just going to be me and you, Channie.” to “Seungcheol, wake the _fuck up_!”?)

“Yeah,” Jeonghan echoes. “First time for everything.”

In the dead of night, with the danger of the decision they made looming over their heads, Jeonghan and Seungcheol take another swig.

(In the small corner of his bedroom, Chan lies in his bed awake, thanking—or perhaps cursing—whatever deity was listening for the thin walls of their home.)

Pleiades Corporation was a building in one of the more shady corners in the business district of Seoul. It did not catch much attention from the rest of the buildings in the area—it was built simply like a moderately tall block, all with tinted windows and nothing particularly eye catching anywhere on its exterior.

Nobody would expect it to be a company building for an illegal transactions company.

Aside from the previously mentioned dull façade, the workers who went in and out of the building didn’t look particularly interesting either compared to everyone else in the business district. All of them wore monochrome suits and slacks and loafers. Nobody was ever seen outside the building in the black skin-tight jumpsuits they wore to missions, so no suspicion was ever raised.

Hansol hates wearing suits.

Standing in front of a flickering mirror in the company bathroom, he looks at himself in the pinstripe suit—a crisp white shirt under his blazer tucked into matching slacks, black leather on his feet, and a gold watch on his hand—and he hates it. Hates the fit of it on his body, the way the colors clashed with his skin, and he hated the most how the tightness of the cloth around his neck danced just between snug and choking him.

He pulls at his collar in an effort to get it to loosen and after 4 minutes of accomplishing nothing, he dejectedly drops it and moves out the bathroom and back to his desk, feeling a little peeved at the entire situation. Then he felt even more annoyed at the immaturity of being bothered just by a collar.

If there's anything Hansol hates more than anything—more than suits and loafers and watches—it's seeing himself act a like a child. Even more so, being treated as such.

So he puts on his neutral face, does his best to ignore the hot, subtle suffocation around his neck, and goes back to work, clicking away concentratedly on his keyboard and keeping his eyes alert on the multiple screens in front of him.

Hansol had been branded a gifted child once.

He’s not a child anymore.

“Chwe!”

Hansol’s head whips to see one of his superiors, a middle aged man constantly smelling of nicotine he never bothered to remember the name of, walking towards his desk with papers in hand.

“Boss says you need to get these done and sent over to him immediately.”

“Of course.” Hansol receives the papers and examines them. They were floor plans to a weapons warehouse. One look at them, and he immediately sees all the possible areas for break-ins and exits. He just needs to work out which one was best.

Hansol turns back to the superior and flashes a curt smile. “I’ll get them to Sungsoo-ssi immediately.”

The man scoffs, head shaking. “You better. If you do a good job maybe then he’ll rank you up, kid,” he says condescendingly as he walks back to where he came from. He doesn’t see Hansol’s jaw clench.

Everyone knows Hansol’s been in Pleiades for years, working on the comms and planning sector of the organization. They know Hansol’s been there since he got here. They know he’s never worked in the field, and they all know how much Hansol wants to be out there.

Hansol isn’t a child anymore, yet he’s still being treated as one.

Nostrils flaring, Hansol forces himself back to his seat and discards whatever he was working on his computer for the blueprints in his hands for a newly based weapons warehouse on the edge of Seoul, closed with metal doors with locks and passcodes and 30 guards to be stationed at all times.

Younger Hansol was constantly praised by adults around him. _What a delightful boy_ , they’d say, _so smart_.

Hansol was more than smart. He saw arithmetic equations and chemistry problems solve themselves in his head in seconds. He looked at appliances and immediately knew how they worked. But while all of those were no mental Olympics for him, his true specialty was puzzles. Any maze or puzzle or riddle set before him could be solved under record time, and he enjoyed doing it.

 _Brilliant_ , they called him.

God forbid he be anything else.

Hansol looks at the blueprints from every angle, taking into consideration every little detail and note scribbled into the margins, and in a little less than an hour and 48 seconds, he was already making his way to their CEO’s office.

Han Sungsoo could be confused with a school principal, with his salt and pepper hair always combed neatly to the side and the round glasses sitting on his nose above a gentle, almost-paternal smile. It was a frightening concept to Hansol that the man was far from what school principals are.

“Sir,” he said once he was admitted in, bowing ninety degrees.

“Chwe,” Sungsoo acknowledges, smiling with his lips closed and his hands clasped together on his desk. Hansol would think he were a school delinquent called in to discuss his bad grades. “I take it that you finished what I asked?”

Wordlessly and fighting a smug smile, Hansol unrolls the paper in his hands and smoothed it down his employer’s desk. Sungsoo ignores the lack of permission and immediately leans forward on the paper, examining the path and instructions in Hansol’s messy scrawl that he had written down in pencil. After an extended amount of time raking his eyes across the paper, Sungsoo lifts his head to meet Hansol. “Explain it to me.”

So he does.

Hansol launches into a detailed explanation of how the plan was to be taken into action. Despite Sungsoo’s emotionless expression throughout his presentation, Hansol wasn’t worried. He knows his solution was the best one they could take, one that was practical and effective, and got the perpetrator in and out in record time.

When he was done, Sungsoo immediately clicks his tongue. “It’s brilliant.”

Hansol did his best not to preen in front of his boss.

“If I asked you what you hope to gain from this presentation of your…” Sungsoo pauses, searching for the right word “… talents, what would you answer?”

This was not a difficult question. This was not a riddle or an equation Hansol had to put his mind to action in order to answer correctly. It was a no brainer. He had known the answer to this particular question for a long time.

Hansol does not waste one second to answer. “An advance in this company, sir.”

His lack of hesitation seemed to please Sungsoo, who smiles at his answer. “Your skill is incredible, Chwe. I admire it very much and am very grateful for what you bring to the table.”

“Thank you, sir. It is my pleasure.”

“Which is why I have to deny your request.”

It was as if the atmosphere in the room dropped. Hansol pauses, his confident stance faltering at the unexpected answer. Across him, Sungsoo remaines smiling.

“What?”

“Like I said, Chwe, you’re a kid with talents.” Suddenly, Sungsoo’s voice took a different tone. “But that is all you are at your core. A child.”

The word sneaked up on Hansol like a spider. He hadn’t sensed it coming from any direction, and the shock of it doubled the pain of the sting when it bites him.

“I wasn’t aware age was a serious consideration in this company.”

“Not age-wise, really.” Sungsoo remaines nonchalant, shrugging his shoulders. “Many employees younger than you are assigned to field jobs.”

“Then why—“

“You are the opposite of a _jack_ , Chwe,” Sungsoo drawles. “You started life in America, I’m assuming you know of the saying ‘jack of all trades, master of none’?”

Hansol clenches his fist and nods.

“You are a master of _one_ , Mr. Chwe. You have not contributed to this company in any other way than this unpuzzling skill of yours.”

“Because you never give me the opportunity to show any other skill,” Hansol growles out. The corners of Sungsoo’s mouth lifts at Hansol’s aggravation.

“And you will never have one,” He says sternly, rising from his seat. “We don’t need another field agent, nor do we care to train another one when there are already many others ready, all of them much more skilled than you. You will, as I hear children say, _stay in your lane_.”

Hansol stays where he is, stunned at what had just conspired. The shock had slowed his anger, but when he had processed everything that had just happened, Hansol feels the most furious he had in a long time. The sly, condescending smile on Sungsoo’s face does nothing but fan the flames of his infuriation.

He opens his mouth to say something, a thousand curses already at the tip of his tongue. “I—“

And then the lights go out.

When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Hansol watched Sungsoo’s figure slam his hands on the desk “What the—“

And the alarm blares.

“What alarm is that?” There was nobody else in the room that the question could be directed to.

Hansol knows they didn’t have such an alarm. He knows all the automatic alarms in the building had been shut off since they had been there, to lessen the attention even if there were an emergency somewhere in the building.

“Fire alarm,” he lies, eyes darting to the plans on Sungsoo’s desk left unattended.

“Fire alarm?” Sungsoo repeats, moving from his desk to a phone near the door behind Hansol. Once he passes him, Hansol silently takes the plans on the desk and rolls them again in his arms. Near the door, Sungsoo shriekes into the telephone before slamming it down on its holder. “The electricity’s down, too.”

Hansol watches the older man click his tongue in annoyance and rake a hand through his hair. Then Sungsoo lookes at him or rather, where he thinks he was standing, and blinks. He does this a few times, before stilling completely. Hansol feels sweat trickle down his back in anticipation.

“Why did you take the plans off the desk, Chwe?”

Hansol doesn't answer and Sungsoo began to walk closer to him, hand outstretching and anger radiating off his body. In the second before his boss could touch him, Hansol thinks, _fuck this company_.

He kicks Han Sungsoo right in the chest and makes a run for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this ended on a cliffhanger but im not a bit sorry HAHAHA
> 
> leave a kudos or a comment for me !! thank u sm for reading <33


	4. author's note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> regarding the current issue

posted february 26, 2021

hi so as many of you may know, mingyu has been accused of sexual harassment and ableism when he was still in school. i do not condone such behaviors, even if they were done by someone i greatly admire and look up to. even if it was in the past, the perpetrators must address it and apologize for it. while there is no true solid proof that it was mingyu who did it, there is proof that the victim had to go to therapy because of it. i will stand by the victim and applaud them for their courage in speaking out about the topic-and i hope you will do the same.

like all other carats, i am waiting for mingyu's and pledis' statement regarding the situation. until then, which hopefully is soon, i will not be updating this fic. the decision of whether i will continue this fic rests on how mingyu and/or pledis will respond to the allegation.

stay safe, carats. i know the news is upsetting and my heart goes to everyone who feels affected and troubled by the news.

\- tobeinfinite

update february 28, 2021

the ableism rumors have been proved false. i await the final statement regarding the other accusations. while mingyu was not actually accused of violent sexual harassment specifically directed at the article's author, he is not yet off the hook.

\- tobeinfinite

final update march 12, 2021

pledis has resolved the issue with mingyu and OP, you may read their full statement and its official translation in english on their twitter account. i am glad that the issue has been cleared up, and i hope it provided the closure OP needed/wanted to leave the situation behind them and finally move on. i am very thankful to OP, to mingyu, and all of pledis staff for handling the entire situation well.

while i am glad about confirmation on mingyu's end, i do not regret my choice to believe the victim first. there are lessons all of us can take from this, some of them are but not limited to not believing everything you read on the internet at first glance, always remembering that your actions will always have consequences-on yourself and others, and that people can grow and change for the better.

carats, we can exhale now. i will be uploading two chapters next week as a treat!

\- tobeinfinite


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